updated 06:10 pm EDT, Tue April 5, 2011

Dell 10-inch Android tablet said showing in June

Dell's burgeoning tablet plans could see it launch its promised Android tablet, likely the Streak 10, well ahead of the Windows equivalent. A leak Tuesday said Dell's talk of a 2012 launch was conservative and that the Android slate might be ready to show by mid-June, about three months before the Windows model would surface. Marketing details haven't yet settled, and Forbes' contact described the 10-inch tablet as so far "unbranded."

It would ship in the summer, according to the tip.

Few official details are available, but Dell did say during a fiscal results call that it would ship with Android 3.0 and not the mixture of Android 2.2 and the custom Stage UI that it uses on the Streak 7. Google's decision to withhold source for Android 3.0 may give Dell little room to code a new replacement and could see it run a stock or mostly stock Android interface for the first time in the company's history.

Given the use of a Tegra 2 chip in the Streak 7, a strong possibility exists that the 10-inch version will use the same processor and get similar performance to virtually all of the first wave of Android 3.0 tablets.

The launch is symbolic for Dell as it represents the first time the company will try to take on the iPad in a comparable form factor. The original five-inch Streak and the Streak 7 both shied away from the 9.7-inch iPad and counted on price to attract buyers. Sales figures have never emerged from the Texas firm, but it's believed to sell tablets in modest numbers given the lack of marketing and lukewarm early reviews.

Would this be the same Streak

that Consumer Reports ranked as the absolute worst of the wanna-be iPads, only in a larger size? Running that OS that Epic says is really bad for complex gaming? From the company who makes utter c*** all the time?

Screwed...

late to market and now having to bend (bend over) to the will of Google. Without being able to customise the UI they cannot make deals with content providers or differentiate beyond hardware design - and let's face it, they all look the same (clunky and plasticky). Dell will now get stuck playing the commodity game with cheaper Asian Android tablets as they race to the bottom.

My advice to Michael Dell is to shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.